


twin sized mattress

by breadpoetsociety (orphan_account)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Keith is in love, Lance is in a band, M/M, Modern AU, Songfic, band au, but by god if they aren't in love, just a bunch of moments together really, these boys are trying and they are a mess, this is all based on the front bottoms music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 14:22:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9495593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/breadpoetsociety
Summary: "I'm gonna have to learn that this love will never be convenient," Lance sang, smile now no longer gracing his face. His eyes instead bore an intensity, a question on the tip of his tongue but never asked. "I'm gonna have to learn that this love will never be convenient."Keith could almost feel the lyrics forming on his tongue even though he'd never heard this song before. He knew the feeling and Lance could put it into words for him. They did make a good team.(Lance makes music. Keith is trying.)





	

Keith let the cigarette smoke escape through his teeth, float up to form a cloud in front of the bright moon. His skin prickled against the cold. The building behind him was invitingly lit, almost vibrating with the energy of people inside it. But Keith still stood in the shadows, waiting for almost everyone to be gone before reentering the McClain house.

The handful of Lance's friends left surrounded the island of the kitchen. The host was front and center, sat comfortably on the granite. A girl in the blond pigtails and short, short skirt leaned up into Lance's side and Keith's blood ran as cold as the beer can in his hand. Lance just laughed and shrugged her off, returning his guitar to the center of his lap. Keith could breathe.

"You guys," Lance was slurring his words together. Keith couldn't say he'd be any better, really. "You guys I wrote a new song."

"Of course you did, Lance," Pidge called out mockingly.

"I got you, buddy," Hunk said, pulling a pair of drumsticks out of his left back pocket. Did he always keep them there? They clacked familiarly against Lance's family's countertop. "What are we playing?"

Lance just giggled to himself, tuning his guitar expertly despite his inebriated state. Suddenly, Lance turned and raised a dramatic finger.

"It's about him," Lance said, smile still plastered on his face. Keith traced down his freckled face, toned arm, down a graceful finger to see it pointed to. Him.

He almost dropped his beer.

"It's about him," Keith noticed Lance was speaking again, the only sound in a quiet room other than an inexplicably running sink. "It's about him and it's really... Good, you guys, so listen up!" He was yelling by this point. Pidge was cackling.

"Come on, just play already, Lance," she whined, and Lance started strumming. His eyes were focused on his guitar– maybe too focused. Keith couldn't stop staring at it either. Scribbles decorated part of it but Keith could hardly read.

"You should know that you don't kick if you don't have to," Lance had started to sing, voice echoing around the kitchen. He had such a unique tone– maybe more of a scream than anything else. "All's fair in love and war, I know, don't get me wrong."

Was Lance looking at him now? "But if you listen to your heart it may mislead you. Lord I should know, I have felt lost for so long."

"You had me go from what I thought was sliding carefully to seriously slipping out of control." Yes. Lance was staring at him now, intensity. But Keith didn't shy away from the blue eyes trained on him. He just stared back, and started to feel really warm.

Lance was slurring his words as he sang, but his guitar playing was almost flawless. Hunk was tapping a simple beat out on the counter top with his sticks and Pidge and Shiro had started to clap along to Lance's crooning.

"I'm gonna have to learn that this love will never be convenient," Lance sang, smile now no longer gracing his face. His eyes instead bore an intensity, a question on the tip of his tongue but never asked. "I'm gonna have to learn that this love will never be convenient."

Keith could almost feel the lyrics forming on his tongue even though he'd never heard this song before. He knew the feeling and Lance could put it into words for him. They did make a good team.

He casually tossed more beer down his throat, hops mixing with the smoky taste still in his teeth. Lance's song was echoing around his head. People were dancing along, clapping along, even somehow singing along but Lance only had eyes for Keith.

"It's not like a movie when we kiss," he sang, fingers whipping over the strings below him. "There'll never be no music when we kiss."

I'm gonna have to learn that this love will never be convenient. Keith rattled the words in his head.

 

–––––––––––––––

 

Lance was folded over onto himself, arms hugging bent knees. Keith's hand traced up his spine before he collapsed behind Lance, draping his arms over the broad shoulders beneath him. Lance's breath started to slow and Keith caught his own matching his.

Terrifying.

 

–––––––––––––––

 

The laughter ripped through his ribs, forcing itself out of his throat and it felt so good it hurt. Keith hopped up and snatched Lance's guitar away from him, holding it above his head tauntingly– and even though Lance was taller than Keith was, he knew that the Cuban boy was much lazier.

Lance's laughter was like lightening: a loud crackle of energy that lighted up the hazy summer sky. Keith snagged the Sharpie that Lance was holding and started to add his own tattoo to the guitar.

"Come on, dude," Lance said through his giggles. "Don't fuck up my artwork!"

"I'm making it better," Keith spoke slowly. There was already so much there: a sticker proclaiming "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS," the signatures of all their friends, his band’s name and the drawing of a lion in blue– but Keith's perfect lettering stood out.

"There!" And in all its glory, next to Hunk's scrawl and a drawing of a butterfly, were blocky letters: "FUCK LANCE."

"Oh, fuck you!" Lance said, half-offended and half-delighted. Keith willingly handed the guitar back to him and fell back into the grass. Fireflies were starting to flit about, matching the stars peeking out in the lilac-blue sky.

A squeak of the marker told the story of an edit being made. Lance's writing hand hit a string and he instinctively hummed with the note.

"There! I fixed it!" Lance said quickly, practically slamming the guitar into Keith's face. One letter edited the entire message: "I FUCK LANCE." Keith didn't even deign the change with a proper response, just a groan that turned into more laughter.

Keith didn't think he had ever smiled this much in his life.

"I mean, it's true," Lance taunted, eyebrows waggling. Keith grabbed the collar of Lance's t-shirt and pulled him on top of himself, now a blanket for his outdoor bed. The guitar laid beside them, forgotten. Lance wrapped his arms around Keith under him, head finding a home in the crook of Keith's neck. Hot breaths tickled his ear as Lance started to plant slow kisses below it.

"Keith?" Lance whispered, and the mirth of the moments previous had been replaced with something heavier, something warmer. Something that felt so good Keith was afraid it was bad.

Lance's words seemed to get caught in his throat and instead he started singing some of his own music, low and slow.

"But there's nothing in California that you could not learn to hate here," and another slow kiss was planted to Keith's jaw, somehow devoid of lust. "The questions will all still be waiting for you, the answers will only be less clear." Lance's arms tightened around Keith, who responded in kind. Another kiss, another emotion beyond either of their grasp.

Keith's view of the stars was uninhibited now but for the first time in his life he felt something secure grounding him to earth.

And that something made his stomach beg him to stop, and his blood was rushing through his ears, and his bones could feel the impending storm. But Keith ignored his fears and did it anyway. Their kiss was like waves crashing on the shore and Keith was swept out to sea.

 

–––––––––––––––

 

"I'm leaving, you know," Lance's words were disjointed, completely detached from the lanky man who uttered them. Keith stared but didn't really see him. He remained silent– as if he could even speak. He felt like a statue, immobile, unmoving. If only, unfeeling.

"We're moving out to Los Angeles," Lance chose to fill the void for just a moment. Grey eyes stared into blue, drowning in each other for what felt like an eternity.

"Come with me?" Lance finally whispered, breaking Keith from his thousand yard stare.

"What?" Keith's voice was almost hoarse, thick with something he just... couldn't quite name.

"Come with me," Lance said again, louder this time. He stepped closer to Keith so their bodies were almost flush, and hesitantly raised a hand to grab Keith's gloved one. Lance cleared his throat. "Come with us to LA."

"No, Lance," Keith shrugged the hand off and shook his head, stepping back. "What sort of idea even is–"

"I'm sure that we could find something for you to do on– onstage," Lance interrupted him. He stepped forward, his eyes begging and hands waving around as incoherently as his words wanted to be. "Maybe shake a tambourine! Or when I sing, you sing harmony!"

Keith didn't think he stopped shaking his head for a moment while Lance spoke. Something was pricking the back of his eyes, something was clogging up his throat, something was making his stomach toss and flip and turn and Keith didn't know what.

But he wanted it all to stop.

 

–––––––––––––––

 

"Keith, please," Lance's voice was weak at this point. The shadows of his face were exaggerated by the flickering porch light. Keith swore if he listened closely, he could hear Lance's heart beating out of his chest.

"I'm begging you, Keith," Lance spoke again, stepping closer. Keith responded with a step back. What a painful dance for the two of them. Lance refused to give up, taking another large step and grabbing Keith by the shoulders. He was shaking.

"Please stay," and Keith could see tears forming in the corner of Lance's ocean blue eyes. It would be so easy to drift in them. So easy to drown. Keith fought to stay afloat, kicked to stay alive, felt the salt water burning his eyes and tearing through his lungs as he finally replied.

"Lance, I love you, but no fucking way," Keith's voice was as broken as Lance's and he tried to shrug him off. But Lance just latched on tighter, dragging their bodies closer together, now clutching Keith's face in his still-shaking hands. The night felt cold. Keith noticed there was no moon.

Tears were falling freely, splotches melting together to paint Lance's shirt a darker blue. They tasted salty on Keith's lips when Lance pulled him in for a kiss: all passion, all energy, all encompassing and overwhelming. Noses knocked against each other and Lance just balled his fists into the collar of Keith's shirt, pulling him close, refusing to let go.

Tears, like saltwater. And he can't let go of this fucking shit metaphor, Keith thinks, mind not stopped by this kiss but instead emboldened.

Because Keith in that moment wanted nothing more to freefall, to stop fighting against the current and just float down into the warm ocean blue, and trust that it would take him somewhere wonderful, somewhere good, somewhere safe but he can't, he yells, he can't and he can't let Lance kill him like this, because he going to drown, and Lance needs to stop pulling him fucking down, because he feels like he might die.

Swollen lips, red-rimmed eyes. The freckles on Lance's face were more prominent now that blood had rushed out of it. Keith wanted to retch. Lance pulled back and immediately Keith was gasping for air. The current was turbulent and he is going to die.

Lance ran a hand over Keith's cheek and he realized that he was crying too. Salt water.

The sound of sneakers against gravel marked his exit– a pounding against the ground, a burning desire for Keith to outrun this feeling of helplessness, of hopelessness, of hate. His shadow stretched, clinging to the boy he left behind.

 

–––––––––––––––

 

Lance’s laughter was hollow. Hunk noticed.

 

–––––––––––––––

 

Something came in sudden contact with Keith's left cheekbone– something hard, something fast. It fucking hurt.

"Why the fuck would you say something like that?" Lance was screaming at Keith now, his voice hoarse. The party was a distant roar, dulled by the alcohol and the blood rushing in Keith's ears and Lance's continued yelling. "Don't fucking make fun of me like that! You douche, you dickwad!"

"What the fuck, Lance?" Keith spat back, quieter but with no less vitriol. "Why the fuck did you just punch me?"

"I-I," Lance faltered even on the first word of his explanation. "You hurt me and I'm hurting you back!" The logic, childlike as it was, made the anger in Keith's bones evaporate. It was replaced by a sudden feeling of familiarity, an internal deja vu. He’s been here before, hasn’t he?

Keith could see Lance deflate at the explanation. Anger, giving way to sadness, pure and unadulterated. He wanted to gently rub away that crease in Lance's brow, ease the tension from his shoulders, reinvigorate him– and yet, Keith knew it was his own contact that made Lance feel the pain he felt.

Keith was no better than he ever was before. God, damn it. God damn it. He lifted a hand up to his face and felt blood but it left no red on his fingers– tears instead, then? That's new.

Lance just continued to stand there before him, breathing heavily and clutching his hand close to his chest. His eyes held every question he couldn't ask. Keith didn't know if he could answer them.

 

–––––––––––––––

 

His shins hurt and his heel blisters were making a glorious return– these boots were not made for running. Keith had been pounding at the pavement for the better part of twenty minutes. The warm Los Angeles wind rushed through his chin-length hair and stinging in his overworked lungs. He was late, he was fucking late and he could not be late. He didn't want to be late.

Keith skidded to a stop in front of a small venue, pebbles flying up from where his feet landed. The theatre was old and worn, but not shabby– just familiar, like an old sweatshirt, an overgrown garden.

Street lamps left an exaggerated shadow that Keith now stood under. He desperately drank in the words on the right side of the marquee: "FLYING LIONS – WEDNESDAY 7PM." A glance at his phone told Keith it was 6:57. He will not be late.

With frenzied energy Keith bounded into the theatre, impatiently weaving through the red velvet line. Seven grubby dollars exchanged hands and Keith was grasping an orange ticket for dear life. 6:59. He will not be late.

Yet something was holding him from opening the ornate auditorium doors in front of him. His eyes roved over it, noting faded paint spots and chips in the wood, and his hand grasped the bronze handle with a white knuckle. Was this all a dream? When he opened it, what would he see?

The sound of an amp being plugged in was all it took for Keith to be inspired to move again, barreling through the doors and into the screaming crowd. Standing room only. Perfect.

The smell of smoke and sweat and electric excitement clung to him. Without an apology, Keith continued to push forward, closer, closer to the front, closer to where a lanky man was elegantly plunking the strings of his guitar.

A laugh ripped from Keith, leaving a melancholy hole, when he saw his own words still carved into that acoustic beast: large, messy Sharpie saying "I FUCK LANCE." He still used that fucking guitar. He still left Keith's words on his fucking guitar. Keith wasn't late.

He peered up onto the stage, only separated from Lance by a few rows of concert goers and a three-foot-high stage. He could jump that if he wanted to. He could pull Lance into his arms again, if he wanted to. He could kiss him if he wanted to.

But instead Keith stared up at Lance, who by this point had started to croon into the microphone, guitar abandoned in favor of clutching the mike with a familiar white-knuckle grip. His blue eyes were roaming over the crowd and Keith couldn't suppress the feeling of pride that was bubbling up inside him: the crowd was singing along. This might not be a sold-out arena, but it's a theatre full of fans that love what Lance gives to them.

That feeling was there again– that melancholy taste on the back of his tongue, that feeling of joy and of fear of being in love with something so great that you cannot control.

Lance strummed his guitar again, transitioning to a song Keith knew. Knew too well. This one he could scream out along with the people around him: “There is nothing in California that you could not learn to hate here.”

"The questions will all still be waiting for you," Keith sang out back to Lance, whose voice soared above all the rest. Keith could feel the beat of the drums in his bones. "The answers will only be less clear."

Lance's eyes were now roaming the first few rows of the theatre, reaching a hand down to the fans standing there, singing down into their excited, passionate faces.

"It's hard to say what I would do if I was back a year or two," he warbled, voice cracking for a moment. Keith felt his own voice give out, matching Lance to an extreme. But he still mouthed the words.

"Look at our plans, try to understand" he sang along to the man with roving blue eyes.

"What could have happened to all of them," and the singing ocean eyes that were suddenly trained upon him. Wide and expansive and full of an emotion Keith couldn't quite place. Lance, for the first time in his life, faltered on his lyrics.

This was a liminal space where time was now measured by the beat of drums. They lined up perfectly with Keith's heartbeat. Grey eyes met blue and the glowing stage lights seemed to fade away. The only thing that mattered now was Keith watching Lance mouth the words he knew by heart.

"It's a black eyed trust, respect with pain, a love that I'll learn when I've been through the same."

 

–––––––––––––––

 

Lance timidly, tenderly held Keith's hand, grasping tight around the leather glove and snaking his warm fingers in between Keith's. Lance smiled, and it felt like the sun was beaming out of his face.

"I'm sure that we can find something for you do onstage," he half-whispered excitedly. He looked as if he could hardly contain himself with the idea. "Maybe shake a tambourine! Or, or when I sing, you sing harmony!"

Keith couldn't help but smile back up at him, reaching for Lance's other hand and grasping it tightly, tightly, afraid to let go.

 

–––––––––––––––

 

Hunk opened the door, panting from his run and letting in a cold blast of air. Fog seemed to seep into the apartment, covering the mismatched floral couch and leather recliner with its dismal, cold tendrils. Keith was reclined on the floor, watching some YouTube tutorial on lockpicking.

With Hunk's entrance, Lance finally stopped pacing. The floor was almost worn in from where he had been treading for the last hour or so. Lance's hair was disheveled and Keith loved how his pajama shirt had ridden up to expose a strip of his midsection.

“But there are answers here, they're just harder to figure out,” Lance muttered, a pencil in his hand. “Since… All of your questions got harder to dodge… And dip around?”

Hunk's heavy breathing had started to taper down and he just listened to his bandmate murmur potential lyrics. Lance had pencils scattered over the low coffee table, some behind his ears, and one in hand. He tapped out a beat as he tried to write lyrics. Lance was referencing a ratty notebook in front of him, copying words from that diary into a new one labeled by a piece of tape adorned with one word: "FINAL."

The silence was punctuated only by pencil tapping and the occasional muttered word or phone buzz before Lance found a breakthrough. He suddenly sat straighter, pencil flying across the half-empty page before him.

"And there is nothing wrong with my lifestyle no matter how many times I tell myself to breathe in, hold it, hold it, now let it out. Now let it out! " He beamed up, smiling at Keith across the floor from him.

The light in Lance's eyes almost blinded Keith. He could do nothing but grin back, infected by Lance's enthusiasm for his own work. Keith tried to turn back to the computer but his eyes betrayed him, trailing across the faux-mahogany table and up Lance's lanky frame.

When Lance was inspired, he was a magnet, hypnotizing to watch. His body ebbed and flowed with whatever rhythm he had in his head, pencil shaking in hand as he continued to scribble down words from his diary, from his dreams, from whatever thoughts popped into his head throughout the day.

Keith wondered what they all meant.

 

–––––––––––––––

 

Keith placed Lance's guitar in his lap, gingerly running the pads of his half-gloved fingers over the strings. Lance sat cross-legged, expectant, eyes wide with wonder. He chose to sing before touching the strings properly, wanting Lance to focus on the lyrics rather than his mediocre technique.

"You are my peach, you are my plum." His face burned red. This felt like the stupidest song to a man who practically shit Byronic poetry. What was he thinking? "You are my earth, you are my sun."

What was he thinking? He was thinking about how Lance made him feel. Keith might be a man of few words but he made them count when it mattered.

"And you are the reason I'm smiling when there is nothing to smile about," and here Keith peeked up at Lance. An immediate mistake: his hands slipped, his heart jumped into his throat, his voice cracked. Lance was crying.

His tears were falling into a smile so large it took over his entire face and Keith’s entire mind.

"You are the reason I'm smiling when there is nothing to smile about," Keith found himself continuing despite the raucous emotion overwhelming him. He didn’t have the word to name it, but the ones he was singing would suffice.

"You are my light, no need to hide. You are my clock, keep me on time," Keith's hands were clumsy on the guitar but Lance was just bobbing along. "You are my angel, you are my crime.

I'll serve this sentence the rest of my life–"

And here Keith was cut off by a body slamming into his, lips finding their home slotted in between his own, a warmth surrounding his entire being and saltwater falling down his face.

"I wasn't done," he muttered into Lance's shoulder, clutching him as tightly as he was being held.

"I love you," Lance just breathed into his hair. Keith was shaking, Keith was crying. Keith was smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! i hope everyone enjoyed this fic. it's based on one of my favorite bands, the front bottoms, and two of their songs: "twin sized mattress" and "flying model rockets." but other lyrics make their appearances too :) 
> 
> i was originally going to make this much longer and more chronological, but then i decided i was lazy and liked the vignette style well enough to just publish it. hope it still is enjoyable to read, regardless!
> 
> feel free to come hang with me on tumblr @ breadpoetsociety.tumblr.com


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